Hi friends! do your salespeople produce the expected sales results?
Let me ask you a simple question; When you hire salespeople, do you immediately send them to the field and start expecting the results, or you train them first?
I can hear many of you saying that you train them. Which is very good! But! with your training do they start producing the desired results?
No! then is it your sales training which may be Creating this problem?
I have worked with hundreds of business owners and observed that in the name of Sales training they provide the product knowledge to new hires, give them product brochures and send them to the field.
But the question is, “Is this training enough? Not really!
The fact is that any sales training comprises of two important aspects
#1 The products knowledge
#2 Selling skills training
I have observed that Selling Skills Training is generally ignored by most of the SMEs. But it is very important, because Dale Carnegie institute has found that 85{2facf265810d5c64deca339a00197305ceb917dadef902f2426694cb75f36e2b} of success depends on Selling Skills. Over dependence on the Product Technical knowledge actually kills your sales.
So…. what are most important selling skills one must be trained on? Yes! With my experience I have found that there are seven important skills one must learn for producing desired sales results.
Prospecting skills:To find new customers by generating more and more leads and referrals. They need to be trained on how to generate leads continuously. What are different sources of lead generation. More the qualified leads more will be orders. They must be trained on how to ask referrals from existing customers. Conversion rate of a referral is far better than a lead.
Qualification skills:to ascertain whether the prospect will really be your customers. It is recommended that new salespeople are trained on the ANUM process of qualification of leads. They need to ascertain whether the prospect you are interacting with has authority to write an order, whether he has enough money to buy the offer, whether there is actual need and urgency to buy. These are very important questions a salesperson must be trained on before he / she actually hits the field.
Relationship building:Instant rapport generation and maintaining relationship with prospect is key. Customer buys the salesperson first and then he / she buys the product.
Questioning skills: To discover his needs to pitch the right product, a salesperson must be trained on questioning techniques. The best salespersons across the world are best at questioning skill. Proper questioning helps the salesperson understand the prospect better and reduces the need of unnecessary talking.
Presentation skills: A salesperson must be trained how to show give the product presentation, explain the prospect about company and show him benefits of your offering.
Objection handling skills:This is one of the key skills a salesperson must be trained on. Proper and convincing answers to questions, doubt and objections raised by prospect will lead to order.
Order closing skills:To judge whether the prospect is ready to place the order and frame the right statement to ask the order is very critical for getting an order. There are lots of salesperson who will do a good job on sales presentation but will not ask for an order. They hesitate or they don’t have right question to ask or right statement to make. Train your salespeople on order closure techniques and make them super productive.
